So How Are We Doing in the War on Terror?

SO HOW ARE WE DOING IN THE WAR ON TERROR?….Foreign Policy magazine has a survey of 116 foreign policy heavyweights in this month’s issue and the results are pretty easy to summarize: they think America’s efforts in the war on terror are failing on practically every measure. The chart on the right shows the consensus.

The survey respondents are listed here. They trend slightly liberal, but the survey results were weighted to give equal weight to self-described liberals and conservatives. Here’s FP’s summary:

Despite today?s highly politicized national security environment, the index results show striking consensus across political party lines. A bipartisan majority (84 percent) of the index?s experts say the United States is not winning the war on terror. Eighty-six percent of the index?s experts see a world today that is growing more dangerous for Americans. Overall, they agree that the U.S. government is falling short in its homeland security efforts. More than 8 in 10 expect an attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade.

These dark conclusions appear to stem from the experts? belief that the U.S. national security apparatus is in serious disrepair. ?Foreign-policy experts have never been in so much agreement about an administration?s performance abroad,? says Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and an index participant. ?The reason is that it?s clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.?

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